On July 25, 2017 at 9:00 AM, the Consumer Product Safety Commission will be hosting a public workshop on Recall Effectiveness. The workshop, to be held in the Hearing Room at CPSC Headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, is intended to allow consumer safety professionals and the CPSC staff to discuss ways to improve the effectiveness of recalls…. Continue Reading

We do not get many court decisions in the CPSC world, but yesterday we received one. Last evening, a Wisconsin federal district court essentially held in the Government’s case against Spectrum Brands, Inc. (Spectrum) that (1) Spectrum failed to timely report defective coffee pots in violation of Section 15(b) of the Consumer Product Safety Act… Continue Reading

In the wake of two tragic amusement park ride accidents in Kansas and Tennessee, and the ongoing political debate in America over gun safety issues, we felt it timely to help answer a question that continues to be asked in the media: does the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) have the authority to address… Continue Reading

Today the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (“CPSC”) and Health Canada announced a massive joint recall with IKEA involving over 35 million pieces of furniture that can pose a tip over hazard to small children. While we would normally write about the recall itself, a troubling development has caught our attention. A CPSC employee prematurely… Continue Reading

This article originally appeared on Law360 on May 12, 2016 and provides additional analysis to our prior post on this subject. After filing a Section 15(b) report and conducting a recall with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), companies frequently ponder whether the CPSC believes the company timely filed its report under Section 15(b) of… Continue Reading

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, CPSC Chairman Elliot Kaye announced in a meeting with consumer advocates that the agency will never again allow a company conducting a voluntary corrective action to call it anything other than a “recall.” Last year, after the announcement of a joint CPSC-IKEA “repair program” to address a furniture tip-over hazard… Continue Reading

On March 25, 2016, Administrative Law Judge Dean Metry found that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (“CPSC”) case counsel did not prove that high powered, small rare earth magnets (“SREMs”) (1) are defective as sold by Zen Magnets (“Zen”); and (2) constitute a substantial product hazard when sold with appropriate warnings, including proper age recommendations (click… Continue Reading

There have been many twists and turns over the past four years concerning the CPSC’s regulation of certain high powered, rare-earth magnet sets and its litigation against various entities selling these magnets. In the latest chapter of the magnets saga, a federal court in Colorado has permanently enjoined Zen Magnets (Zen) from selling magnets purchased… Continue Reading

[This article originally appeared on Law360 on August 7, 2015 and updates our prior post on this CPSC corrective action] On July 22, 2015, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and major furniture company IKEA jointly announced a “repair program” to address the serious and complex hazard of furniture tip-over posed by 27 million chests… Continue Reading

Yesterday the CPSC and major furniture company IKEA jointly announced a “repair program” to address the serious and complex hazard of furniture tip over posed by 27 million chests and dressers sold by the company. The repair program offers free wall anchoring repair kits so consumers can secure the chests and dressers to the wall… Continue Reading

So what is the CPSC’s “fast track recall” program and what is the benefit of participating in it? What is a “stop sale notice” and why does the CPSC generally request it for fast track recalls? What else is required by the CPSC in order to participate in the program and what are the potential… Continue Reading

As we wrote about earlier this month, on April 1, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (“Tenth Circuit”) temporarily stayed the effective date of “the enforcement and effect” of the CPSC’s safety standard for certain high-powered magnet sets. Specifically, the Court stayed the safety rule pending consideration of the CPSC’s response… Continue Reading

For the first time in recent memory, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) jointly announced the filing of a lawsuit in federal court for the imposition of a civil penalty and injunctive relief for violation of the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA). The lawsuit is against arts and crafts retailer… Continue Reading

Over the past year, we have blogged about the CPSC’s rulemaking process to regulate high-powered magnet sets via a safety standard as well as the administrative complaints brought by the agency to force multiple companies (e.g., Buckyballs and Zen Magnets) to recall certain magnetic products deemed to be defective by CPSC staff. In a major development… Continue Reading

Following an ABC 20/20 investigative story where CPSC Chairman Elliot Kaye called Craigslist’s failure to block the sale of recalled products “morally irresponsible,” the agency announced yesterday that it has entered into an agreement with the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group (“Alibaba”) to stop the sale of products recalled by the CPSC to U.S. consumers…. Continue Reading

Update: After some uncertainty, Congress passed and the President is expected to sign the 2015 Omnibus bill into law. The report language of the Omnibus bill incorporated by reference House Report 113-508, which accompanied a previous appropriations bill passed by the House earlier this year. This additional report language addresses several key CPSC issues, including: import safety, the phthalates… Continue Reading

In May, we advised readers conducting recalls that the CPSC’s new monthly “recall progress report” form may catch you by surprise. Among other changes, the form included new provisions requesting companies to report recall notification statistics on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter along with information from the company’s monitoring of online auctions for… Continue Reading

We do not typically take positions on product specific issues pending before the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (“CPSC”), but the CPSC’s new safety standard for magnet sets demonstrates both why the agency exists and how it can use its regulatory authority to protect consumers. In enacting the safety standard, the agency did not eradicate… Continue Reading

This space has thoroughly explored the various forms of civil liability food companies face for the mislabeling and/or deceptive marketing of their products. Last week, a set of landmark convictions in a criminal food-safety prosecution potentially signal increased criminal liability for food companies when matters of public health and safety are at play… On Friday, September 19, 2014, a federal… Continue Reading

A recent federal decision has made clear that court-ordered recalls can have real teeth, not just for manufacturers but also their officers—especially when the court has reason to suspect a company’s execs are deliberately dragging their feet. On Tuesday, September 2, the Northern District of Georgia held the CEO and a senior vice president of Hi-Tech… Continue Reading

Although the final rule currently under consideration by the CPSC sets a performance standard for magnet sets, the practical effect of the new safety standard will be a ban on the future sale or distribution of powerful rare earth magnet sets like Buckyballs and Zen Magnets. During the height of their popularity, these types of… Continue Reading

The House of Representatives is currently considering H.R. 5016, the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act of 2015, which provides funding to many different parts of the federal government for the next fiscal year. This includes the CPSC, which would be funded $118 million under the House bill (the Senate appropriations bill provides for… Continue Reading

Former CPSC Chairman Ann Brown recently sent a letter to the leaders of the CPSC’s congressional oversight committee asking for them to “urge the Commission to consider its proposed [voluntary recalls] rule carefully and to assure that it does not adversely affect CPSC’s Fast Track Recall Program.” As we’ve previously written, some aspects of the proposed… Continue Reading

The CPSC recently released a new monthly progress report form for companies conducting recalls with the agency. The revised form is in some respects better written than its predecessor and retains many of the old information reporting categories, disposes of or modifies other information fields from the old form, and contains entirely new and already… Continue Reading